Free HartsLove by K.M. Grant Page A

clover flower and a chestnut leaf,’ Lily said, gazing into her cupped hands. She smiled a little sadly. ‘We’re in the bag.’
    â€˜Why didn’t she take us with her?’ asked Clover or Columbine. They had been barely four when their mother had left, and only now, in her empty room, did she seem real to them. Garth took the chestnut leaf and balanced it in his palm. Colourless and gossamer thin, only the tiny tracery of veins stood between it and a puff of powder. He hardly dared to breathe. That his mother thought ofhim as a chestnut leaf seemed entirely right. Had he been asked to choose something himself, it was what he would have chosen – a chestnut leaf from the chestnut tree at the Resting Place. He let the leaf float on to the dressing table. Rose opened a drawer. ‘Let’s put them in here,’ she said. They obeyed. Rose shut the drawer and turned the tiny key.
    Daisy went back into the closet and opened her arms. Soft muslins, scratchy brocades, ticklish furs and a faint smell of damp enveloped her. Some clothes slid off their hangers; others brought their hangers with them. Stumbling under a multicoloured billow, Daisy collapsed on to the bed. Rose caught the nearest dress, a pale green evening gown of fine silk embroidered all over with tiny lilac flowers. She held it against herself. The bodice, drawing to a tiny waist, was boned and lined; the skirt, without the crinoline to support the dome of the cut, hung in a shining waterfall. Lily caught another dress, this one grey and sprigged with aquamarine feathers. ‘Put them on!’ urged Clover and Columbine. Clover went to Lily and Columbine to Rose and, though the older girls never expressly gave their permission, began to unhook the coarse cotton dresses that Mrs Snipper had run up for them.
    Before they had finished with the hooks, Daisy was bringing out soft chemisettes, gauze fichus and pantalettes of lawn cotton and lace, all spotless white and more delicate than the snowflakes still falling outside. Lily exclaimed withdelight. Daisy disappeared again, and this time emerged draped in doeskin gloves, swansdown tippets and three woollen shawls still smelling of spices.
    â€˜Pa brought these home from the war!’ Rose exclaimed. ‘Don’t you remember, Lily? He spread them in the drawing room and told us that they should slide through a wedding ring.’ She picked up one of the shawls and held it against her. Green and gold thread glistened. She gathered the shawl, made a ring from her thumb and index finger and drew the shawl through. ‘Ma folded one over her head and covered her mouth. Pa said she looked like a Turkish princess. You must remember.’
    Lily nodded. They shared a smile.
    Daisy was busy shaking out three high-waisted dresses of creamy muslin, each dress spun transparent as a butterfly’s wings. Rose gazed at the dresses in amazement. ‘These must have been our grandmother’s, or even great-grandmother’s,’ she said. ‘Nobody would dare wear such things now. They’re completely see-through!’
    â€˜Put them on! Put them on!’ chanted Clover or Columbine. Rose and Lily demurred, then, unable to resist and with the twins as willing helpers, they were slipping the gossamer dresses over their heads. Their cotton shifts protruded. ‘Use these,’ said Daisy, and handed over specially made matching underclothes of tissue and lace.
    â€˜You can’t!’ Garth was scandalised.
    Rose and Lily disappeared into the closet and minuteslater wafted back, barefoot and shaking out their hair. Clover and Columbine gasped.
    â€˜You’ve turned into fairies!’ Daisy breathed. ‘Real fairies.’
    Clover vanished, then edged out of the closet caged in a circular crinoline, its whalebones clicking. On her head, she had squashed a wide-brimmed hat, and round her ankles flapped a pair of long drawers. She flashed a feathered fan, then